Cantabile
by scratchmarred
Summary: He has taught Suou Tamaki nothing: nothing of relevance, and nothing beyond what the boy has wanted to learn.  [character piece]


**Dedication:** to Kitty [livejournal's cateyed, who will please forgive me for this having turned out as it did. It's unfit for someone of your calibre, but it was my best effort with the series.

**Timeline :** the summer before Haruhi's appearance.

**Note :** Tamaki character study through an outsider's perspective – compilation of short, if hopefully connected episodes. Pointless in most parts, random in others. I do hope confusion won't abound, but apologize in advance in case it does.

-

"Cantabile."

Some notes in such a vibrant discord, it's a harmony of its own making.

"He's not had adequate instruction insofar, and he likes to put on a show."

Distracted. Like an afterthought. Like a slaughterhouse.

The woman knows her ways. "But you'll teach him all the same."

And the envelope is thin in his hands, wicked and still and so very white.

Whimsical.

-

The Mistress Suou is the boy's grandmother, and they could be no more unlike. She is crippled by her disgust, and the discrepancy is not lost in every one of her nephew's stylized smiles.

The Professor does not respond to contrasts; he wonders, instead, whether the boy practises his laughter in the mirror – _look here, my early afternoon enchant__é grin, has it need of a bit of a polish? _– and he dreads, foremost, that this might not be his best; that this is a lesser smile, the casual whim of an introduction, discarded altogether – that Suou Tamaki no longer needs this smile, so he'll take pity on his foreign, exotic visitor and grant him a souvenir.

He has no need of pittance, would sooner make this clear – but the boy is already raising his hands, all wrapped up, all a fright, and it's already, "Hello. I am sorry I can't come with you," and, "Please have a lovely flight back!" before names are even exchanged.

This _is_ pittance, he knows, but Lady Suou won't have it: "A regrettable accident. He'll play with his feet."

_Hello, boy. You're the souvenir, and you're coming with. _

As Doctor Kusagi later reveals, his contract covers all expenses, the boy's injuries are minor, and he has never seen Vienna before as is.

The boy laughs,"Could it be that – yes! Of course! Grandmother has seen the unbecoming pallor of this perfect face and hopes some European air will do well for my complexion? How delightful!"

The Professor is determined to honour him as any a gentleman, and he does not ask after his confidences. Let him accept his Grandmother's choice. Let him respect it and the good born of it.

Suou Tamaki flies silently, separately, and never looks at his fingers.

-

Some have kissed his hands for being their maestro, others wept. A young girl slept with him, and he still knows the touch of her white against him. He holds it dear.

Suou Tamaki waltzes in his assigned student's quarters – this is no metaphor, there is no time, and the lady of some pedigree being paraded about does not choose to complain over a flourishing heir's affections – negligently, valet on beck and call, suitcases half forgotten.

Then he screams, once doors are closed and not opening anew, not _really_, "I don't want to be here. Make here not be here! Here is from now on elsewhere!"

It is owed to him, the boy means to say. It is all owed to him, the fortune and the beauty and the talent, but he won't say it plainly.

There is a sudden shame in this tradition of abnegation, of awe before study and so many possibilities; it washes over the Professor – he feels it _dirty_.

-

Suou Tamaki's German is broken, never formally mastered, and it is soon apparent that he had hoped to go by on French alone. Perhaps English. From the beginning, this does not bode well, and other students throw jibes his way that he does not understand and land him in a world of trouble. He forgives them, though he hasn't the words to say it.

To his fortune, however, Vienna will be Vienna, and its Academy cosmopolitan. Before long he is all a chatter in misconstrued dialects, borrowed tongue on his own, layered over grammatical errors of such dimensions and repetitions that the Professor laughs sooner than corrects. He was young once. They keep him young.

They are still friends, still enemies, still something symbiotic and not altogether unlike, and they only see face under formal circumstances. A lesson, a visiting Maestro's discussion, the hors d'oeuvres served before a private recital. The boy does not play wantonly, often refuses invitations. Perhaps the Professor has misjudged the need for an audience, or perhaps this one does not suit him. In Japan, Suou is a name renown, but here, like in France, he is anonymous.

They don't have to like him, the Professor concludes, and this must scare him.

The first word Tamaki wants to learn is "beautiful."

-

The boy shows neither especial merit, nor concern, least of all interest. Instead, he masks a rigid apathy cobbled with faint resent through the exaggerated deference of a man avoiding the plague. He learns his notes and studies the literature peculiarly; often he will know what has been said, though regularly he will endure through the apparent discomfort and inconvenience of their daily two hour interludes with a stiff upper lip, and drugged on visions of imaginary, if artistic grandeur.

Suou Tamaki, this blond thing, frail and long and lean, is by far the worst scholar the Professor has ever seen.

He is also easily the best pianist in the history of thirty years' worth of academic service.

A problem.

-

He can't. He mustn't. He _doesn't_.

The telegram finds him alone and without. It is clotted with ink stains and brimming with the trepidation of unsteady fingers – in an age of scientific miracle, he wonders, briefly, how the letter in his hands somehow _is_, not an e-mail, not a card, mere post.

A former student, it says. Come to Venice. Come to her premiere. It's a well crafted Burlesque, and he so very likes Strauss, doesn't he? And it should all be such great fun, a one-time opportunity – won't he come, and bring this lovely new chickadee under his wing that everyone's heard so much about? Well, won't he?

It occurs to him, belatedly, crumpling the note like a forlorn billet-doux, that it must have cost quite the small fortune. All the prepositions are there, the conjunctions, the unnecessary particles.

Not among them, Tamaki's hasty, "No, no, quite unthinkable! You promised cupcakes at the corner café that weekend! You're only ninety something, and that place is dreary – just be stubborn and don't die until the next concert! Now - they have the ones with sweet sparkles for this Saturday's Sugarfest…"

-

Close the door steadily. There's a fellow.

"Mister Su'ou? Let go of that Berlioz. You're infatuated with it. And that is not supposed to be an ostinato, so kindly – Oh. I'm… sorry. I'm sorry."

The conversation is quickly very unlike the one he had anticipated, perhaps because the boy – a name comes with difficulty, though he must learn it – _Tamaki_ is not alone, and his companion is dark and tall and handsome – Japanese, and one of _them_. They all are, it's a fright.

But he's smoking, and he's more than too young for that, and the Professor is gentle towards vice, but allergic. A chance habit, and not trained, if ever at all maintained. Kyouya Ootori, he will learn, is not an adept of anything, though frequently a connoisseur.

He knows, for instance, that the flimsy, vague near-charcoal exuding such strong spice is a Russian Black Sobranie - and though not a Treasurer, hardly to be dismissed as a penny's expenditure.

Kyouya Ootori knows, and he will let it fall limply like a bloodied, dead thing that is only half ash, then he will step on it and waste it - regardless.

"I'll leave you to your session," the Ootori third-in-line says in the stead of greeting, then nods, looking straight in the eye, not guarded, just pricing. "Professor."

Tamaki grabs his sleeve, his arm, a five year-old and a very precious doll indeed. "Noooooooo, Kyouya! Don't abandon your dear friend in his last hour! Can't you see? I'm dying – but _beautifully_!- fading – oh the dark – the endless dark and cold- I hear the bells, it's a meadow, with not-painted-_green_ grass, and sheep and taxmen and whatever else comes with commoners' vegetables, maybe icons – Kyouya, it's God! Pour ton cher ami Tamaki and the Tomato God – _stay_. You can't do this to your Lord and _Mas_ --" And then, incorrigibly, "Maestro, make him staaaaaay."

The acknowledgment of whatever rank, whatever ounce of respect – the _acknowledgment_ makes refusal a scandal and severity unthinkable.

It's exploitation, the Professor thinks. It's vicious. It's wrong.

He asks Kyouya Ootori to stay.

-

The Professor's lecture discourse ends dramatically: "Society cannot afford to regard any of its prominent members indistinctly."

The quote receives instant acclaim and press favour, and divorced of its context, it is the object of criticism from those who interpret it as a veiled request for personal gain - the sort of bold, vague statement so dependent of the reader's benevolence that has the makings of bringing him status, or ruin; has _feeling_.

Quickly, he is torn apart as a demagogue, and a bourgeoisie malcontent – less deserving of an Award of Merit, far more of ungentle politics.

After a while, students pretend not to know, and the unspoken conclusion remains that he has said his piece and choked on it.

There is still the feel of rot and decay under his tongue, cradling his teeth, when a curt examination leaves few exempt from failure, and he is rewarded with graffiti on Academy walls: "You're distinct enough to suck us dry."

That day, Suou Tamaki gifts him a small, sculpted horse, and it takes him some time and lengthy rhetoric to say that, yes, all commoner chess pieces are made of wood, and yes, for all of that, they're quite pretty.

The symbolism is indisputable.

-

Two young men bearing the same face, though such truly perfect twins, biology has disclosed, are exceedingly rare. Their shirts are wrinkled, their voices haughty, and there is a _distinct_ faculty of maintenance specialists on their hands and knees and rubbing off chalk and spray paint.

"Good work! The King will knight you, you know! My word, you've honoured your liege and country, minions!" Suoh Tamaki's shouting is barely discernable over fatigue, because there's no telling how long he's been at it, friends present or not, how long he's been erasing the Professor's shame out of physical existence.

Afterwards, the boy's hands reek of chloride and disinfectant; they are red and ripe, like little fat plums, though they won't be any good for playing for days and days and they must hurt unthinkably.

Doctor Kusagi is all sighs and does well by his trade, but the boy never dons the bandages he came with. Instead, "What's the need for them? I'm perfectly fine – say, is that strudel made out of… real… commoner's apples? Am I Snow White now?"

Check mate.

-

The Professor remembers the Opera, and white gloves, and clean nails.

That is all he is left, for the boy is his companion, and a perpetual chatter, all joie de vivre to the left and carelessness to the right, and a more stupendous mountain of crass musical ignorance, the Maestro has never seen.

Suou Tamaki plays intuitively, when the women abound, when there's praise to be won, when there's laughter. He has an unbending adoration for tarantellas and personal compositions of a liking, and he would have his harem dance around him, if he could.

He is instead interrupted periodically, "Play the Blue Danube for me. Or some heavy Beethoven. Anything."

The boy is unresponsive, then accedes to the request, and it's such a butchery of the art, such an endlessly, shatteringly, breath taking performance that the Professor wants to snap the piano lid over and throw him out.

The boy shouldn't have this much talent. He shouldn't leave it unused. He shouldn't _be_.

-

When he is with friends, the boy is a touch livelier. Not much. Tamaki's execution of Ravel's Sonatine Movement Deux is immaculate, and the Professor makes the fellow the allowance - " Bravo!" – because he has done well, he has done well indeed, even if Kyouya Ootori declares himself bored and takes his leave most unexpectedly.

He approaches the Suou devil-turned-brilliance spawn with patriarchal condescension.

"Are we so philosophically different? Surely not. You're a young man and rich and handsome – and I have seen how the women look at you. What more could you want?"

The boy glares idly, playing with his hair like some wanton concubine, manners all a bedroom lure – a concubine whose favour the Professor admires, but could never afford. "And these ladies? Do you think of what _they_ want?"

There's something amiss, the Professor's mind bleeds in a haste of thought, something he's missing.

-

He checks himself daily for dark spots in the mirror. Under his arms, as proper, then on his hands, on his face. Was this a plague first slighted under the reign of Cyprianus? Justinian? Was it wretched and its own defiance? Bubonic?

What does this boy see? What heinous slight? What great imperfection?

What does he _see_?

-

It feels like bribery when the Suou woman approaches him again at the Midsummer Festival – only the once, never to inquire of progress, or ailing, or ruin - another parchment envelope heavy in hand, "My thanks on such a splendid job. Tamaki's not once complained."

Of course he hasn't.

The Professor bleeds his _blindness_.

_Of course._

-

A parting visit – again the Ootori.

He leaves Viena on the morrow, and chance, rather than arrangement, finds him at the Academia. There is one thing more laughable than the other: first, that Tamaki takes to a pout, and complains of abandon most fiercely; secondly, that anyone could actually believe Kyouya Ootori means it.

Their friendship has overcome the stage where negligent disclosures can be dismissed as societal flirt, yet somehow side-stepped the awkward intimacy of those who have admitted to perhaps too much, perhaps too soon, perhaps wrongly.

For all of this, the Professor has no doubt that if there is any secret unshared between the two, it is their business alone, and no one else's.

Tamaki plays again, something soft, then salty, allegro, Mediterranean, Greek and Italian and superb altogether, like a stray cat in its first heat. When he is done – when he's exhausted himself completely – the Ootori laughs as is his wont, inexplicably.

Then he is moving, and waving his farewell, never looking behind; not the done thing at all. They part ways with a shake of the hands, and a biting, " Goodbye, Professor," in perhaps the best German he has heard from a foreigner yet, so imitative, so natural. "I don't envy you." More laughter. " I don't think anyone could envy you."

Behind him, Tamaki is a fury of giggles – " Ah! Mother should have told me he likes commoners' music! We must see more of these commoner things – because Mother wants us to! Yes…? _Yes_? Kyo-u-yaaaaaaaa…!"

The Professor does not bother to do please kindly inform Herr Suou that he is screeching, that this is unacceptable, that he should best cease and desist and damn it all to blazes, now.

This is it.

Tamaki sees.

-

He has tried every whore's trick and contributed immensely, but the boy remains a riddle, the answer unforeseen, now regretted. _A regrettable accident_…

His student loathes Vienna, much as he caters to the respective demands of whatever society in which he loses himself, drunk on bawdy conversation. His closer friends can only visit sporadically, with an easily taken leave of financial woes, but not of their own summer arrangements; the teaching the boy allows himself is mediocre at best; their relationship as maestro and apprentice is fragmented into trivialities and aversion.

He tries again, because he has been at times paternal, dignified, wise, eclectic – in combinations, or at once. This time, he will be truthful:

"I know you hate it here. I know you did not want to come. I know you cannot return until the summer is over. I know a great many things, and among them I also know that you are very privileged indeed, and that you should bear this in mind when spiting your status and your wealth. They are the makings of great professional opportunities."

"…well, of course I should appreciate all this money, shouldn't I?" Suou Tamaki nods wisely, licks the edge of his ice cream, that unbearable amount of cream exploding from any possible waffle cone orifice; the boy's eating speaks of another's habit – he does not ask for sweets entirely too often, but when he does, they must be colossal. "That's very much why I'm here for, you know. Tax evasion and all that : we had to get it out of Japan, so now I secretly sleep with all the family heirloom under my pillow, which is of course why my hair's been so horrible lately – well, not that perfection could be ever really marred, but if you look at just the single unflattering angle, you can more or less see…"

-

He will resign within the hour.

It's ridiculous and unheard of, and he begrudges his pupil much as he begrudges himself. _More_.

He has taught Suou Tamaki nothing – nothing of relevance, and nothing beyond what the boy has wanted to learn.

But first a word, brusquely before afternoon tea, finally slamming the lid of the great Steinway beast quite candidly and nearly over so very pale, bastard fingers.

"Look – what is it?" Because enough is enough, and he's had more than his trifle's worth of a share, more than two can bear, or three, or four, or a bloody armed battalion. " Is it that I'm not rich?" And he knows this for lie immediately, since he has seen the boy with the hired help, and when not overly generous, he behaves himself impeccably. "Is it because you think you've nothing to learn from me? I've schooled with the best of them, you know, and I've played just as well, no, _better_ than they. So what am I doing wrong here? What do you want from me?!"

They tell him the boy is always a smile.

Until now, he has never seen a true one.

"Sympathy, sir."

He knows immediately how badly he has wanted to.

-

He tries no longer.

The boy counts the days.

And the Professor, too, starts counting.

-

In the airport, once the summer session is over – once teary eyed goodbyes have been shared with every other member of the faculty – once every girl of his acquaintance has given him some trinket, and he has made such a spectacle of treasuring it like nothing else – the Professor passes him the envelope. "Give this to your grandmother, if you will. "

The money is there, all counted, and more than once, a note with them. And somehow, he knows – Suou Tamaki _sees_ again – because he is suddenly smiling, really, truly, deeply _smiling_, "She'll have it with _all_ my love, sir."

-

**Note** : I do know that he is canonically shown to dote on his grandmother very, very much – but I do find it a bit unrealistic to assume that Tamaki does not feel the slightest bit of reluctance in accepting her ways, sometimes.

I initially couldn't settle on a name for the Professor that takes him to the Vienna Conservatory, and his habit of distancing Tamaki as "the boy" probably didn't help with the pronoun confusion. So sorry…


End file.
